The story about a woman, a wife and a mother - it deals with how she survives daily brutal marital rape with a ray of hope and the shocking climax. A very sensitive and shocking story that culminated from real life incidents.

Many Bay Area agencies have made fighting sex trafficking a top priority in recent years. But the Oakland Police Department’s sexual misconduct scandal involving several officers and an underage sex worker has raised concerns over law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce trafficking. In the wake of this scandal at the Oakland Police Department, we’ll take a look at the state of sex trafficking in the Bay Area and talk with some local experts about the latest efforts to combat it.

Black Women's Blueprint convenes the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the US ever to focus on Black women and the historical and contemporary experiences with sexual and reproductive violations in this country.

The incident is a gruesome reminder of the uncomfortable truth that India is not prepared to deal with the deluge of crimes perpetrated against women daily – a woman is raped every 22 minutes.

Consider this. Reports emerged this month that a young woman was gang-raped by the same men who had raped her three years earlier in Rohtak, Haryana in North India. Frankly law enforcement authorities should be ashamed of themselves. That the criminals were free all along and had the temerity to repeat the crime on the same victim can only point to the abysmal failure by Indian law enforcers to deal with rape crimes.

Clearly, the attackers’ decision to track the victim and repeat the crime was meant to thumb their noses at her family and authorities, fully aware that they would get away with it again.

Based on lessons learned from a NIJ (National Institute of Justice) -funded project in Detroit, MI, this report offers recommendations that guide the development of a plan for testing a large number of previously untested sexual assault kits (SAKs).

Abstract:

First, form a multidisciplinary team to plan and implement an audit of previously untested SAKs. The team should include representatives from the police, prosecution, forensic sciences, medicine, and systems-based and community-based victim advocacy. Second, explore each team member’s thoughts about the purpose and value of SAK testing. Third, discuss whether to test all or only some of the previously untested SAKs, which may be determined by the resources available. Suggestions are offered on the use of grants and fund-raising. Other recommendations for testing a large number of SAKs pertain to the selection of terms used to describe the process to be undertaken, the development of a process for selecting which SAKs will be tested, use of the State statute of limitations as a criterion for selecting the SAKs to be tested, and budgeting sufficient time and resources for selecting the SAKs to be tested. Recommendations also concern budgeting extra time for older SAKs, tracking and sharing testing results, a plan for what happens after testing is completed, the review of local policies and State statutes regarding evidence retention, and determining whether legislative changes are needed to resolve backlogs of untested SAKs. Resources with additional information on this issue are listed.

It’s about damn time.

"When there are no ceilings the sky is the limit." So glad my granddaughters are watching Hillary Clinton tonight!

Watching my 93 year old grandmother, a lifetime feminist and activist, cry at @HillaryClinton speaking.

EXCERPT:

“Tonight, we’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march toward a more perfect union: the first time that a major party has nominated a woman for president,” Clinton said Thursday night. “Standing here as my mother’s daughter, and my daughter’s mother, I’m so happy this day has come. I’m happy for grandmothers and little girls and everyone in between. I’m happy for boys and men, too – because when any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone.”

“After all, when there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit,” she added. “So let’s keep going, until every one of the 161 million women and girls across America has the opportunity she deserves to have. But even more important than the history we make tonight, is the history we will write together in the years ahead”

But in a sharp departure from how abortion issues normally percolate, the loudest calls for the repeal of Hyde did not originate with groups such as Planned Parenthood or Naral Pro-Choice America – groups that have set the agenda for abortion rights supporters for decades. Instead, the calls originated with groups such as the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and SisterSong.

“Women of color leaders have been calling for the repeal of Hyde for decades when most mainstream reproductive rights groups did not prioritize this issue,” said Jessica González-Rojas, director of the National Latina Institute and an All Above All co-chair.

The result is a movement that overtly fuses one of the modern Democratic party’s most established positions – support for abortion rights – with the interests of the activists who increasingly represent the demographic future of the party.

The target is substantial. Hyde is one of the biggest barriers to abortion left standing, after the supreme court in June struck down health restrictions with no basis in evidence.

It is not a law, but a rider that has been attached to every one of Congress’ annual appropriations bills since 1976, when it was first introduced by the congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois. Today, the amendment prevents abortion coverage for some seven million women, about half of whom live below the federal poverty line. The only exceptions to the ban are when a woman’s health or life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape.

“I would argue that it’s the harshest abortion restriction still on the books today,” said Destiny Lopez, who is co-director of All Above All, a network of reproductive rights advocates that is leading the first serious push to repeal the Hyde amendment in decades.

OAKLAND, Calif. ― The city council here has tightened regulations around pregnancy clinics that try to fool prospective patients with advertisements falsely suggesting that they perform abortions.

The ordinance, passed last week, makes Oakland the second U.S. city to target advertising by so-called crisis pregnancy centers that mask an anti-abortion agenda, according to organizations promoting abortion rights. San Francisco passed a similar ordinance in 2011.

Some such clinics have used billboards and online ads to trick women into thinking that they perform abortions or offer other emergency contraceptive care, according to Amy Everitt, NARAL Pro-Choice California director. She said she’s troubled that searching Google for information about abortions in Oakland brings up results for nearby centers that don’t provide the service.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a central concern for development, both from a human rights perspective, and from the point of view of the economic and social costs that VAWG represents. The scale of VAWG is shocking; the World Health Organization estimates one in three women will directly experience either or both of two forms of VAWG: intimate partner violence, or sexual violence from a non-partner. Authors in this issue of Gender & Development describe, analyse and assess a range of approaches to VAWG, and strategies aiming to end or minimise this human rights abuse, which blights the lives of women, families, and societies across the globe.

If you would like information on subscribing to the journal, with access to all G&D content, visit the Routledge/Taylor & Francis website http://www.tandfonline.com/gad

This story is tragically familiar. In the past few years, many of the men who have committed horrific, unthinkable acts of violence against the public have had a history of abusing the women in their lives. Prior to unleashing their deranged violence onto the world, it appears they practiced it against the most vulnerable and accessible targets ― those living inside their homes.

Before Micah Johnson gunned down five Dallas police officers, in the deadliest attack against law enforcement officers in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001, he was accused of sexually harassing a female soldier, who asked that Johnson receive mental help and for a protective order against him.

Before Omar Mateen opened fire in a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and committed the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, he beat his wife.

Before Robert Dear shot to death three strangers in a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs last fall, he allegedly abused his wives, was charged with rape and arrested under a “Peeping Tom” law.

Before Tamerlan Tsarnaev planted bombs at the Boston Marathon with his brother in 2013, killing three people and injuring more than 260 others, he was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend.

Before Cedric Ford stormed through multiple Kansas townships with an assault weapon and a pistol, killing three and injuring 14, he’d just been served with a restraining order stemming from a domestic violence complaint filed by his ex-girlfriend. In her request for the order, his ex-girlfriend wrote that it was her belief that he was “in desperate need of medical and psychological help.”

A new journal, Feminist Dissent, aims to create a space to interrogate the multi-faceted links between historical and resurgent religious fundamentalism and gender.

Seasons of Mud by Yousif Naser. Photo: Yousif Naser

In the last two decades there has been an exponential growth not only in fundamentalist movements around the world, but also in systematic research and debate about the scope, strategies and impacts of fundamentalist mobilisations. The power of faith-based organisations, among which fundamentalist tendencies have found fertile ground, has also been enhanced through their ability to work on multiple levels - through international, nation state, and oppositional or civil society spaces - to their own advantage.

The new journal, Feminist Dissent, which is hosted by the University of Warwick, brings together innovative and critical insights to enhance our understanding of the relationship between gender, fundamentalism and related socio-political issues. At a time of rising religious fundamentalism which is accompanied by intensifying threats to civil liberties, freedom of expression, dissent, and difference, we aim to create what we believe we need most – a space where contributors can say the things that we have not been able to say. We hope this will narrow the distance between dominant feminist thinking and lived experience, and give rise to new coalitions of feminists committed not just to writing about justice, but to fighting for it.

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

That's a theory from my friend K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force. Based on what I experienced as a black man serving in the St. Louis Police Department for five years, I agree with him. I worked with men and women who became cops for all the right reasons — they really wanted to help make their communities better. And I worked with people like the president of my police academy class, who sent out an email after President Obama won the 2008 election that included the statement, "I can't believe I live in a country full of ni**er lovers!!!!!!!!" He patrolled the streets in St. Louis in a number of black communities with the authority to act under the color of law.

Full Range of SRH Services Must Be Available to Those Experiencing IPV, Family Planning Providers in Particular Have a Crucial Role to Play

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is widespread in the United States and constitutes a serious public health crisis, often significantly impacting women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). A new analysis in the Guttmacher Policy Review arguesthat addressing the needs of those experiencing IPV requires an integrated approach that includes the full range of sexual and reproductive health services. The analysis also examines key federal policies at the intersection of IPV and SRHR, and finds that safety-net family planning providers are particularly well-positioned to connect women experiencing IPV to the care and resources they need.

The global anti-trafficking movement, now well into its second decade, has successfully used the 3P paradigm of prosecution, protection, and prevention to strengthen how the world combats trafficking in persons. Governments committed to enhancing prosecution of traffickers have enacted laws that criminalize all forms of human trafficking and prescribe suff iciently stringent sentences. Protection efforts have empowered individuals to move beyond their victimization and rebuild their lives with dignity, security, and respect. Prevention measures have provided communities around the world with valuable information about the risks of human trafficking, elevating public consciousness about this crime. Yet so much work remains……..

"If there is a single theme to this year’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, it is the conviction that there is nothing inevitable about trafficking in human beings. That conviction is where the process of change really begins—with the realization that just because a certain abuse has taken place in the past doesn’t mean that we have to tolerate that abuse in the future or that we can afford to avert our eyes. Instead, we should be asking ourselves—what if that victim of trafficking was my daughter, son, sister, or brother?

"This year’s TIP Report asks such questions, because ending modern slavery isn’t just a fight we should attempt—it is a fight we can and must win.

"The TIP Report is the product of a yearlong effort requiring contributions and follow-up from employees in the United States and at our diplomatic outposts across the globe, host country governments, and civil society." – John F. Kerry, Secretary of State

The Report

The 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report is available in PDF and HTML formats. The PDF is available as a complete one-piece file and as individual sections for easier download. To view the PDF files, you will need to download, at no cost, the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Torture is widespread in Mexico’s “war on drugs”, but the impact on women has been largely ignored or downplayed. This report analyses the stories of 100 women who have reported torture and other forms of violence during arrest and interrogation by police and armed forces. Severe beatings; threats of rape against women and their families; near-asphyxiation, electric shocks to the genitals; groping of breasts and pinching of nipples; rape with objects, fingers, firearms and the penis – these are just some of the forms of violence inflicted on women, in many cases with the intention of getting them to “confess” to serious crimes.

The data visualization project, released by the Black Lives Matter initiative Campaign Zero, reveals several stipulations written into contracts or state law that activists claim hinder investigations into police misconduct.

WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S. cities with police union contracts and nearly every state with a version of the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights have at least one major barrier to holding police accountable for misconduct, a new report claims.

The data visualization project, released by the Black Lives Matter initiative Campaign Zero, looks at jurisdictions that dismiss police complaints, restrict or delay the interrogation of an officer, give officers compromising access to information, limit oversight or discipline, and either pay for, or erase records of, police misconduct.

Campaign Zero is made up of activists Samuel Sinyangwe, Brittany Packnett, Johnetta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson. The review, which includes a state-by-state breakdown of each state’s restrictive measures, is part of a broader movement to increase transparency in police departments around the country in an effort to reduce police violence.

“In terms of results, I hope this information empowers communities to effectively push city leaders to remove these types of barriers to accountability in their contracts, as we are seeing happen with newfound pressure to renegotiate contract provisions in Chicago and Seattle, for example,” Campaign Zero’s Samuel Singyangwe said in an email statement to BuzzFeed News.

The report reveals several stipulations written into contracts or state law that Campaign Zero claims hinder investigations into police misconduct. In Florida, for instance, there is a180-day statute of limitations on investigations or “disciplinary action, suspension, demotion, or dismissal may not be undertaken by an agency against a law enforcement officer or correctional officer for any act, omission, or other allegation of misconduct” according to the state’s policy language.

“They were all telling me to go away.” Anano, 6, is a child actor. But the situation she’s in is very real. Every day, millions of children living in poverty are ignored, pushed aside and deprived of everything they need to thrive.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Our 2016 State of the World’s Children Report is a call to action for the world to treat its least fortunate children the way it treats its luckier children: http://uni.cf/sowc16#foreverychild#FightUnfair

The official UNICEF YouTube channel is your primary destination for the latest news updates from the frontline, documentaries, celebrity appeals, and more about our work to realize the rights of every child.

While Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Justice Stephen Breyer in his majority opinion, she penned her own scathing concurring opinion that, in one brief paragraph, warns lawmakers across the country that medically unnecessary abortion restrictions will never be tolerated by the high court.

The 2013 Texas law that the court struck down would have required all abortions to take place in ambulatory surgical centers, or mini-hospitals, instead of regular clinics. Ginsburg kept her argument simple: Abortions are statistically safer than many simpler medical procedures, including tonsillectomies, colonoscopies, in-office dental surgery and childbirth — but Texas does not subject those procedures to the same onerous requirements.

“Given those realities, it is beyond rational belief that H.B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions,’ Ginsburg wrote. “When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners ... at great risk to their health and safety.”